Today's walk report: 062622

 Summer.

Remember when summer was bitchen? You know, "have a bitchen summer!" A colloquial statement when signing someone's yearbook around the age of puberty. Well, I'm here to announce that summer is not bitchen, at least not in my part of planet earth. It was only bitchen back then ‘cause you were getting out of school. Nope, summer sucks in inland SoCal, hot, dry and mostly miserable. The beach pretty much sucks too because UV radiation can kill you and it's crowded with all the people from the wretched valleys who are trying to escape. Also, there's no parking and it's dirty. Additionally, we've been in what now seems to be a forever drought and water is being rationed. We're all gonna die!

So, I went for a walk. It was a beautiful morning, you know, from about 6 to 8 AM. Here are some pictures.

This tiny California cottontail seemed to be enjoying leaves of the plentiful scarlet bugler (Penstemon centranthifolius) plants. The flowers are all dead because, again, it's summer.

The century plant (Agave americana) flowers are finally blooming.

A fabulous no-prize, never delivered, for anyone who can find the bee.

This picture is a special inclusion for Docken who was with me on the phone (thanks Doc) so she could see how large the alleged "pistachio tree" has gotten. My best guess is this is a Chinese pistache (Pistacia chinensis). Pistacia, part of the cashew family, are dioecious (like Cannabis) meaning you need both a male and a female tree to produce seed, in this case, pistachios. I have yet to see either male or female flowers on this tree. Both Docken and I are old enough to remember when this was a mere stick in the ground.

That tree, by the way, is the favorite place for the male Calypte anna hummingbird known as "Dusty" to hang out. Meanwhile, here's Dusty. Had I known that the background bokeh was going to be so stunning I would have tried to get some more images in this spot.

This cabbage white butterfly (Pieris rapae) was playing hard to get. This is the best I could do without stomping all over the verbena it was enjoying.

This little ground squirrel was quite honestly freaking me out. The closest moment we had, that I let it have, was when it came up to me while I was sitting on a bench and it touched its nose to my left sneaker. I'm pretty sure, had I allowed it, the tiny Sciuridae would have climbed up the leg of my Levis. And then what?

It simply would not stop following me, was it some sort of delayed imprint experience? "Are you my mother?" I finally ditched it, got one more picture of Dusty, did a lap around the garden and headed back to my car.

The entire walk was probably a little more than one and a half miles and took place over the course of almost exactly one hour. Shortly after 8:00 I could already feel the heat coming, even though it was only 72º F. Also, I had to get home and water. I'm not supposed to water between 9AM-4PM. Current temp, 93º and I expect it to hit 103º. 

Have a bitchen summer!